Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Wood-burning Stoves: Smoke Control Areas

Geraint Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 17 January 2022 to Question 102527 on Wood-burning Stoves: Smoke Control Areas, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of (a) mechanisms for and (b) the performance of the external contractor for ensuring high standards in the (i) approval and (ii) testing processes for (A) individual and (B) ranges of appliances for receiving exemptions to burn unauthorised fuel in smoke control areas.

Robbie Moore: The Department has regular quarterly performance review meetings with the current contractor that delivers the Defra stove exemption certification scheme. These governance meetings focus on performance and delivery of the scheme and are also taken as an opportunity to drive efficiencies. The testing of stoves is carried out by an independent third party. Stoves are tested against the standard set out in BSI published document 6434 and BS 3841. The independent third party provides test reports to the Department’s contractor who reviews them to ensure that the smoke emissions limits of less than 5g of smoke per hour are not exceeded with the tested fuels.

Sewers: Pollution

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the responsibility of local authorities to work with water companies to tackle polluted surface water outfalls that occur as a result of mis-connections to sewers rather than surface water runoffs.

Robbie Moore: The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues. Misconnections are often the product of poor domestic drainage from private drainage asset owners. However, the contents discharge from water company assets and water companies have a responsibility to investigate and resolve. Water company drainage and wastewater management plans provide the opportunity for companies to proactively identify these risks and propose long-term solutions to address them.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Power Failures

Sarah Olney: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether there have been any power cuts on their Department's property in each of the last three years.

Mark Spencer: There have been no power cuts on the Department's property in the last three years. We have generators at our key sites, and these are maintained and tested regularly to mitigate the risk of power cuts. In addition, we have UPS units (uninterruptible power systems) across the estate to protect our IT networks and users from the effect of short-term power outages. Defra also participates in business continuity exercises such as Exercise Mighty Oak, which was run earlier this year by the Cabinet Office to test the Government’s response to a national power outage.

Mink: Disease Control

Kim Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the article entitled Mink farming poses risks for future viral pandemics published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 19 July 2023.

Mark Spencer: The Government shares the British public’s high regard for animal welfare. Fur farming has been banned in England and Wales since 2000 (2002 in Scotland and Northern Ireland). Fur farming is legal in some countries and cases of infection with influenza A viruses of avian origin and SARS-CoV-2 have been confirmed in farmed mink in these countries in recent years. Therefore, we remain vigilant and continue to use our established systems to monitor for new and emerging animal health risks through our Veterinary Risk Group and Animal Disease Policy Group and for public health risks through the Human Animal Infections and Risk Surveillance group. We have published a risk assessment on the transmission from animals to humans of influenza of avian origin and SARS-CoV-2 in Mustelidae population. International collaboration and knowledge exchange on animal health risks including zoonotic pathogens is facilitated through discussions between the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and representatives from the UK’s network of national and international reference laboratories, and their counterparts in the EU and globally through the World Organisation for Animal Health and allied projects. Including through the joint WOAH-FOA Scientific Network on animal influenza OFFLU.

Plants: Export Controls

Dame Caroline Dinenage: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure free movement of cultivated plant biodiversity.

Mark Spencer: UK plant health controls take a risk-based approach informed by the evidence and balance ensuring robust biosecurity with the facilitation of trade. The threat from plant pests and diseases is significant and growing due to globalisation and climate change.High plant health and biosecurity standards keep harmful pests and diseases, like Xylella fastidiosa, out of the UK, benefiting both the horticultural trade and the environment in the long term. The UK has some of the highest plant health and biosecurity standards in the world, and we have been clear we will not compromise on these standards. They are integral to supporting and protecting the horticultural industry as well as sustaining our food supply and natural environment.The UK Plant Health Risk Group is continuously reviewing risks to plant biosecurity and identifying actions needed to mitigate the most significant threats. These include keeping our regulatory regime up to date, carrying out focused surveillance and inspections, contingency planning, research, and awareness raising, as well as identifying areas where intervention would not be helpful or justified.Further, the UK is a member of both:the OECD Seed Schemes which provide harmonised standards for the international trade of seed of regulated plant species for agriculture, andthe OECD Forest Seed and Plant Scheme which ensures forest reproductive material (FRM) is produced, controlled and traded according to harmonised standards.The EU has granted equivalence to the UK for agricultural seed (excluding production of vegetable seed), fruit and vegetable propagating material, and FRM, ensuring these commodities may be marketed in the EU.The UK Plant Health Information Portal has published Defra guidance to importers and exporters of plant material to support trade facilitation.

Department of Health and Social Care

NHS: Temporary Employment

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, by how much and what proportion the (a) total, (b) substantive, (c) bank and (d) agency workforce will change at each NHS (i) integrated care system, (ii) trust and (iii) foundation trust in the 2023-24 financial year.

Andrew Stephenson: Local National Health Service providers are responsible for setting their establishments and planning their workforce. This is normally done in a dynamic way throughout the year, reflecting their demand and the types of services they start or cease providing.The latest published NHS workforce statistics detail the composition of the NHS substantive and fixed term workforce, including by trust and integrated care system. The statistics are available at the following link:https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/july-2023NHS England asked all NHS providers, through the operational planning and contracting guidance for 2023/24, to ensure that their plans ensure that agency expenditure does not exceed 3.7% of their total pay bill. The guidance is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/operational-planning-and-contracting/

Physician Associates

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential barriers to the integration of physician associates into primary care teams.

Andrea Leadsom: In implementing the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, NHS England is working with the relevant professional colleges and regulators, to ensure the physician associate (PA) role is expanded safely and effectively. In addition, NHS England has produced patient-facing materials that have been shared widely with general practices to support patient awareness and understanding of the role.The introduction of regulation by the GMC will provide a standardised framework of governance and assurance for the clinical practice and professional conduct of PAs and make it easier for employers, patients, and the public to understand the relationship between this role and that of doctors.

Mental Health Services: Racial Discrimination

Abena Oppong-Asare: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce racial inequalities in the use of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Abena Oppong-Asare: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 since the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983 was published on 6 December 2018; and what progress her Department has made on tackling the disproportionate number of people from black and minority ethnic groups being detained under that Act.

Maria Caulfield: We are continuing to pilot models of Culturally Appropriate Advocacy, investing up to £1.5 million to provide tailored support people from ethnic minorities to better understand their rights when they are detained under the Mental Health Act.The Patient and Carers Race Equality Framework was published by NHS England in October 2023. Rolling this out will support mental health trusts to improve access, experience and outcomes and reduce disparities for people from ethnic minority backgrounds. All mental health trusts will be required to have a framework in place by March 2025.Between 1 December 2018 and 31 March 2023, there were 218,219 detentions under the Mental Health Act. It is important to note that the number of detentions is not the same as the number of people detained as some people might have been detained more than once during the period.

Autism and Learning Disability: Hospital Wards

Abena Oppong-Asare: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on its commitment to reduce the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in specialist inpatient care by 50% by March 2024 compared with March 2015.

Maria Caulfield: We have made significant progress towards reducing the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in inpatient mental health settings.For people who have a learning disability and who do not have an autism diagnosis, the data shows that there has been a 57% reduction in the number of people in hospital since March 2015. For people who have both a learning disability and autism diagnosis, there has been a 33% reduction in the number of people in hospital since March 2015. However, the number of people with an autism diagnosis, who do not have a learning disability, in hospital inpatient settings has increased significantly over the same period.Taken together, this results in a net reduction of 30% against a commitment to reduce inpatient numbers by 50% by March 2024; more specifically there were 2,035 people with a learning disability and autistic people in a mental health inpatient setting in October 2023 compared to 2,905 in March 2015.Actions underway to make more progress include investing an additional £121 million this financial year to improve community support as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, including funding for Children and Young People’s keyworkers.